How to Quickly Grow Your Audience (Without Wasting Time and Money)

3 Proven Hacks to Grow Your Audience and Start Getting the Following You Really Want

People will sell you all kinds of tactics and strategies for growing an audience, but how do you do it in a way that scales quickly with the high-quality people you really want?

How do you grow without losing the members who love you, love your product, and make you as great as you are?

We have three proven hacks to answer those burning questions.

After helping thousands of people get their own membership sites not only “off the ground” but “into the air,” we’ve seen these tips produce rewards time after time.

1. Get Specific.

Do you hate the “tell us about yourself” question? So does everybody. Because the topic of “yourself” is overwhelmingly general. And the more general a topic, the harder is it to talk about it.

Now if someone asked, “What was your favorite childhood meal?” or “Tell me about your college soccer team,” you would probably know where to start.

The same goes for business. If you’re not known for something specific, it’s difficult for people to share what it is that you do.

In fact, the more specific the market and the more specific the solution you provide, the faster and easier it is for you to create attraction.

Do you help people with a specific diet? Or a particular craft, like calligraphy? Do you help people take a certain type of photo, like Jamie Swanson?

Jamie loves to help photographers—but doesn’t work with everybody. She realized she would get far more attraction if she helps photographers within a niche: building their personal brand photography business.

She found attraction like crazy! And was able to build an audience quickly!

The same happened with TRIBE. In the beginning, founder Stu McLaren wanted to help all entrepreneurs with growing their businesses.

That’s really really broad—and broad messages just don’t stand out.

But the moment he decided and committed to helping people with one thing that he was really good at—which was launching and growing successful membership sites—guess what happened?

Everything took off.

It started with a really small workshop he held, but that workshop spread by word of mouth. The next thing Stu knew, one event turned into two and then three—leading ultimately to a signature course experience TRIBE.

Now thousands of people have gone through it and successfully launched their membership sites.

Going specific is the fastest way for you to begin growing your audience because then you’ve made it easy for people to share about what you do.

2. Pick a Platform.

In the beginning, there are so many different places to share content, but the bottom line is this: you have to pick one platform to be your primary platform for sharing content.

We see a lot of trouble when people are spread too thin. They’re trying to create content for YouTube. They’re recording audio for a podcast on SoundCloud and iTunes. And they’re on Facebook. They’re trying to do Instagram, and Instagram Stories. They’re trying to do Snapchat. They’re trying to do Twitter.

They’re trying to do everything.

But what they get is exhaustion—and never really making traction in any one area.

The key is to pick a main platform, especially when you’re just starting off.

In the beginning for us, it was Facebook. Facebook creates several natural advantages, particularly when it comes to sharing content, but also in advertising your content.

The other platforms are great, as well.

But, whatever platform you pick, just focus on one in the beginning. Dominate that one space first—expansion can come later.

3. Stick to a Schedule.

The most important thing when it comes to building your audience is quality content on a consistent publishing schedule.

You have to get out there!

You need to show people that you bring authority, value, and support to the table—as well as a solution to their specific problem.

How do you do that?

You can share content on a blog or social media platform. Or get involved in conversations.

There are a ton you can choose from. Here are just a few:

YouTube. Get into the comments. Make sure you interact with people and share content consistently.
Instagram. Again, share content consistently, get in the comments, and help people through interaction.
Facebook. Facebook is especially helpful because of the Facebook Live feature—an amazing way to establish your authority, build connection, trust and help people in real time. (This is one of Stu’s favorites!)